Nonprofits Are Balking at Law on Disclosing Political Donors

In an era of enormous, and often secretive, political spending, an ethics law championed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo was billed as a major breakthrough: tax-exempt groups that lobby New York State government would finally be required to reveal where they got their money.

But two years after the law passed, a growing number of nonprofit organizations, spanning the ideological spectrum, are seeking exemptions, arguing that their donors could be endangered if their names were released to the public.

The debate in Albany over which groups should be excluded from the disclosure law is quickly intensifying, echoing disputes over transparency versus privacy in California, Maine, Minnesota and other states.

In Albany, where even transparency is discussed in secret, the state ethics commission voted behind closed doors to grant an exemption to Naral Pro-Choice New York, a prominent abortion rights group. That lone exemption has prompted Republicans to accuse ethics regulators of favoring liberal organizations.

The application by Naral was followed by requests from at least four other groups — two more supporting abortion rights, a group opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, and the New York Civil Liberties Union.

Some government watchdogs are hoping that the ethics commission takes a tough stance by limiting exemptions.

“It can quickly become a slippery slope,” said Dick Dadey, the executive director of Citizens Union, a good-government group. Mr. Dadey said exemptions should be granted “only in rare circumstances,” like “evidence of an actual threat.”

“Once you start pulling out one thread and creating an exemption,” he added, “you risk having the whole network of reporting be undermined.”

But the groups seeking exemptions say the potential cost of disclosure is too high.

Andrea Miller, the president of Naral Pro-Choice New York, said, “Even here in New York, where there’s such extraordinary public support for a woman’s right to choose, our organization has been targeted.”

Ms. Miller said the group regularly received disturbing handwritten letters, and once had a menacing video posted on its Facebook page by a man who was later convicted of assisting in what he thought was a plot to bomb an abortion clinic.

Other groups around the nation have also sought to shield their donors from public scrutiny. In recent years, the National Organization for Marriage, which opposes same-sex marriage, has sued in several states to challenge laws requiring the disclosure of donors.

And this spring, the Federal Election Commission agreed to continue exempting the Socialist Workers Party, citing the “long history of threats, violence and harassment” against it.

But New York has emerged as a central battleground for efforts to mandate greater disclosure.

In addition to the requirement for nonprofit groups to disclose donors to lobbying efforts, the state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, in June began requiring them to also reveal donations they use to pay for election spending. And last year, the New York City Campaign Finance Board adopted similar rules for independent expenditures in city races.

The new lobbying regulations in New York are notable because they apply to groups organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the federal tax code — groups that have not been required to disclose their donors. Such groups are intended to promote “social welfare,” but they have become a political force: on the federal level, they reported spending of more than $256 million in the 2012 election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington, which tracks political spending.

In New York, they have been big players, too. One group, the Committee to Save New York, spent more than $13 million on advertising supporting Mr. Cuomo’s agenda in 2011 and 2012; the group went dormant as soon as the state started requiring disclosure of donors.

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Andrea Miller, the president of Naral Pro-Choice New York, said the abortion rights group regularly got disturbing letters.CreditRobert Caplin for The New York Times

“It’s a period of tremendous evolution right now in these laws about disclosure,” said Kelly Williams, the corporate general counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, a research and advocacy group at the New York University School of Law.

Ms. Williams said organizations should be exempted from disclosure when there was credible evidence their donors could face threats or harassment, but not when they feared the prospect of economic harm to their donors, — from a boycott, for example.

New York’s definition of lobbying goes beyond back-room arm-twisting at the Capitol. It also includes spending on television advertisements that have become a common means for outside groups to rally public support of or opposition against legislation.

The new measure requires groups that devote substantial resources to lobbying to disclose all of their donors who contribute more than $5,000.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said the exemptions were legally necessary but did not undermine the law.

“For far too long, the world of tax-exempt groups, operating unregulated as lobbying entities, has been in need of sunshine and reform,” the spokeswoman, Melissa DeRosa, said. “Under Governor Cuomo’s leadership, New York is the most progressive state in the nation in that pursuit, while abiding by federal case law considering safety exemptions.”

So far, about 80 groups, many of them trade associations, have disclosed their sources of financing.

The Naral exemption was approved by the state ethics commission in June.

Since then, the exemption has attracted notice because Naral has been so politically active: waging a campaign last year to help Democrats take control of the State Senate; spending $425,000 on lobbying this year, pushing an abortion rights measure put forth by Mr. Cuomo; and vowing to go after incumbent Republican senators next year.

David A. Renzi, a Republican appointee to the ethics commission from Watertown, said at the panel’s last meeting that he was concerned about the process by which the commission was considering exclusions.

“Really, what we’re talking about is potentially tens of millions of dollars to be exempted from review,” he said. “We should have that debate publicly.”

After Mr. Renzi’s complaint, the commission decided to table other exemption applications while it considered whether the process should be less opaque.

The ethics commission would not name groups seeking exemptions, but several have identified themselves publicly, among them Family Planning Advocates of New York State, which cited the 1998 murder in suburban Buffalo of an obstetrician who performed abortions, and New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms, which cited attacks against supporters of Proposition 8, the California ballot measure that banned same-sex marriage.

“We have no intention of releasing those donors,” said the Rev. Jason J. McGuire, the executive director of New Yorkers for Constitutional Freedoms.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which said that Supreme Court precedent required the state to provide an exemption for groups whose work is deeply controversial, is also worried about ramifications for donors.

“People say nasty things about us or call us up all the time, and we can take that,” said Arthur Eisenberg, the group’s legal director. “It’s the individual donors who shouldn’t need to take that, and the price of their association with us, and their participation in the First Amendment activity of lobbying, should not be at the cost of their feeling secure and free from threats and retaliation.”

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